Close observers of the industry will have noticed that the French resort of Chamonix has rebranded since last season.
When we met Anne-Laure Du Chattel at Grand Ski 2012, she had just started in her role as head of marketing for the resort.
Du Chattel came to snowsports from outside the industry (her previous employer was Danone, the food and drink multinational), and had some clear ideas about where she wanted to take the Chamonix brand.
New Brand Identity
One of the first steps was a new logo. Du Chattel had identified an inconsistent use of logos, with two main (conflicting) images being used:
“The project for developing a new logo took three to four months,” Du Chattel told Skipedia. “We started by inviting agencies to submit ideas and reduced that to a shortlist of four, before awarding the contract to Saguez and Partners – an agency in Paris.”
The new logo was launched in September. The work has been nominated for a ‘Top Com’ industry award.
“The new brand identity incorporates iconography that Chamonix Mont Blanc merits,” said Du Chattel.
One valley, one brand
We agree that it’s a much stronger statement and captures the dramatic quality of Chamonix that the previous logo never managed.
We also particularly like the way the other towns in the valley have been incorporated seamlessly into the brand. This was very clear on the Chamonix Mont Blanc stand at Grand Ski (seen below):
The Chamonix Mont Blanc stand at Grand Ski
New Facebook page
Another key change was the establishment of a new ‘official’ Facebook page for the resort.
An extremely successful unofficial Chamonix page has been in place for several years, and has over 37000 fans. However, with a rebrand underway, Du Chattel felt a new page was essential: “We had no control over the existing page and we had to ensure that the new brand was portrayed in the right way.”
The new Facebook page was launched in June, with a target of 7500 fans by January. This was surpassed and the new page already has over 11500 fans. “This growth is 100% organic,” Du Chattel told us, “We have spent no money buying fans – I didn’t want to go down this route.”
Geocaching competition on Twitter
Chamonix have also been using Twitter, and, uniquely among French resorts to our knowledge, ran a geocaching competition in Paris in December 2012.
“We don’t want to keep all our eggs in one basket,” said Du Chattell. “Facebook is great, but we want to communicate with our fans on multiple channels.”
Our most recent research showed only 42% of French resorts have a Twitter account, so it’s great to see a French resort using Twitter and pushing the boundaries. Chamonix is certainly not taking social media for granted.
By Iain Martin